


On the Editing Room Floor

by lodessa



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-24
Updated: 2006-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pam kind of wonders whether she used to comment on everything so carefully in her head or if it’s something that talking to the cameras has encouraged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Editing Room Floor

Pam can hear herself narrating her life and saying she doesn’t know why she let Kelly convince her to go to coffee. She does know of course, but it just doesn’t sound like an appropriate voiceover for her story on film to say she went to coffee with Kelly because she was lonely and in need of attention. Kelly after a caramel macchiato is even more headache inducing than Pam might have imagined. She mentally adds to the imaginary movie script a clever comment about keeping Kelly away from caffeine at any cost in the future. She’d describe the experience as the frantic movements and beginning of a chipmunk voice when the VCR goes into fast forward.

So maybe she’s feeling a little superior. Maybe she’s been doing a lot of that since Jim’s been pretty much ignoring Karen the last few weeks. Not ignoring, Jim’s always really nice, but it’s pretty clear there isn’t much of a threat from that corner. It’s Katie all over again. Not that she minds if Jim has a girlfriend. They’re just friends, good friends. People get weird with significant others though, ignore friends and Pam has every right to be pleased that’s not what’s happening. She missed Jim when he was gone. It’s totally normal to miss friends and be glad they are back. 

Pam kind of wonders whether she used to comment on everything so carefully in her head or if it’s something that talking to the cameras has encouraged. In a movie Kelly would maybe be represented with all her dialogue sounding like incomprehensible babble. It depends on how stylized the film was going to be. It’s second nature now at any rate, regardless of what it used to be.

She’s learned to tune in when Kelly gets to the real question portion her gossip cycle. Mainly it involves staying alert for the mention of Jim’s name. Tonight is no exception.

“So now that Jim and Karen are like totally over are you going to take him back right away or make him sweat it out trying to win you over?” Kelly gushes, like there’s no question that Jim still wants Pam, like Pam has been crying over Jim to Kelly. Pam certainly hasn’t been doing anything of the kind, and she’s not even sure Kelly has any real reason to think Jim ever was interested.

“It’s not like that,” Pam counters, “Jim and I are just friends.”

“The cameras aren’t here Pam,” Kelly argues, “And it’s not like you’re fooling anyone. Seriously, even Michael probably knows.”

In the movie version of this scene Pam is sure she would sound more convincing, “I’m not trying to fool anyone. Jim and I are friends, good friends, and that’s all either of us want to be.”

“Come on Pam! You’re like my best friend! That means we are supposed to confide in each other and I tell you everything…” Kelly whines.

“There’s nothing to tell, Kelly,” Pam promises, resisting the temptation to point out the fact that Kelly would tell a complete and utter stranger everything in a heartbeat and probably has.

“If you seriously believe that, you have way lost touch with your feelings,” Kelly reaches out to put her hand on Pam’s across the table and put on her serious face, “It’s like on Buffy when she and Angel were like totally in love but pretending they were just friends and then Spike showed up and was like the voice of total reason, as well as being way hot, and told them that they weren’t really friends and would always be in love and it was totally amazing. So yeah it’s totally like that and I’m like Spike, breaking through the fog of self deception…”

Pam mentally narrates that Kelly probably just remembers the show because she had a crush on the guy who played this Spike guy. She’s pretty sure she has been subjected to a slideshow of photographs featuring him at least once in the past. Being snide in her mind totally undoes any nervous feelings the topic could have brought up, not that there’s any reason she should be upset by it. Jim and she are totally just friends.

And the reason she adds Buffy Season 3 to her Netflix queue isn’t that she wants to see if Kelly was right. It’s because she’s sure it’s not and besides she’s been meaning to see if for a while because watching things Dwight likes is always hilarious and he’s been talking a lot about Joss Whedon and Pam sort of liked Serenity, which she and Roy ended up seeing in the theatre because she’d threatened to wake him up in the middle of the night when she had nightmares and couldn’t sleep if they went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose and he refused to see Just like Heaven and 40 Year Old Virgin was sold out by the time they got to the theatre. It’s certainly not because Kelly is at all right, and Pam thinks that it’s detail that should be left out of the official tale of her life, because it’s not like you puts every DVD you watch in the movie of your life. It would be too boring for words. So there’s no need to include it, because, she and Jim are friends and most certainly not in love, especially not the “until it kills you” kind.

Actually, everything except the bit about Kelly and caffeine is absolutely not worth including. Pam mentally cuts it right out, sewing the scenes on either side together seamlessly in her mind.


End file.
